Manawatū Community Law Centre / Te Whare Ture Hapori O Manawatū

18/06/2026

Kia Ora Manawatū,

Our office will be closed this morning due to staff training purposes, we apologise for any inconveniences caused!

16/06/2026

Bill 7: Submission Due Date - Friday 31 July

Reserve bank on “Keeping Cash Local”: Access to cash - Reserve Bank of New Zealand - Citizen Space

Reserve Bank essentially proposes that everyone living in urban areas to have to walk no more than 3km to an ATM or bank which can deal in cash. Rural availability would be limited to a 15km drive. Let me know what you think.

https://consultations.rbnz.govt.nz/rbnz/access-to-cash/

16/06/2026

Bill 6: Submission Due Date - Friday 31 July

Consultation on the employment dispute system

MBIE are looking at making improvements to employment disputes resolution processes. MBIE want feedback on experiences with employment relations disputes, throughout the whole journey of the dispute. Areas of interest include:

• how disputes happen and areas of law that could be improved to minimise unnecessary disputes and lead to better resolution outcomes

• how disputes progress and what influences how early they are resolved or whether they escalate

• the time it takes to settle a dispute, and the impact this wait time has on the individual and/or business

• how well the government-provided dispute resolution system is working, including whether it is delivering efficient, affordable, and fair resolution.

16/06/2026

Bill 5: Submission Due Date - Thursday 16 July

Fair Trading Amendment Bill

The Bill’s shifts most breaches from a primarily criminal enforcement model to a civil liability regime, while retaining criminal offences for a limited set of intentional and serious misconduct provisions. The Bill raises the maximum civil penalties and criminal fines for breaches. CLCA supported this change in a consultation last year, and we also recommended penalties for harassment be included in the FTA (in respect of debt collection in particular). We can take the opportunity to recommend that here too.

The Bill includes a statutory safe harbour conditional defence to protect online service providers from civil liability in proceedings when they act in good faith to proactively disrupt suspected scam activity. And it also makes some changes to the product safety regime.

House

16/06/2026

Bill 4: Submission Due Date - Thursday 2 July

Legislation (Definition of Woman and Man) Amendment Bill - New Zealand Parliament

According to the bill’s policy statement, “the purpose of this amendment is to uphold legal certainty, protect the integrity of sex-based rights, and ensure that language in law reflects biological reality. This definition will apply in all contexts where the terms “woman” and “man” are used, unless explicitly stated otherwise in specific legislation”.

CLCA intends to oppose this Bill for reasons including that most legislative language is gender-neutral so the Bill is a waste of time and resource, there are unintended consequences, and that it does not support human rights (section 7 BORA report supports this).

Public submissions are now being invited on this Bill

16/06/2026

Bill 3: Submission Due Date - Thusday 2 July

Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill

The Bill introduces a new power for Police to issue move-on orders requiring people who are engaging in disorderly or disruptive behaviour in public places to leave and not return for a specified time:

enables Police to issue move-on orders—
for behaviour that is disorderly, intimidating, threatening, or disruptive, unreasonably obstructing entry to a trade or business, breaching the peace, begging, rough sleeping, or activities indicating an intent to inhabit a public place:
to people 14 years or older:
for a specified period of time, not longer than 24 hours:
for behaviour that is below the threshold of criminality, or for low-level criminal behaviour that relates to public disorder:
excludes move-on orders from applying to protest, freedom camping, and fundraising:
introduces new powers for Police to temporarily detain a person:
creates new related offences and fines.

CLCA has raised with MOJ concerns about treating welfare as a criminal issue, shifts problem down the road, infrastructure required to refer people to social services – what training and resources will be available for Police, Police and MoJ advised against these orders, particular concern about young people and disabled people, restricted ability to be in public places. Police already have powers regarding disorderly behaviour, fines won’t be paid, additional court time for these, doesn’t provide a solution to homelessness. Submissions will cover these points and anything other input from CLCs.

House

16/06/2026

Bill 2: Submission Due Date - Tuesday 23 June

Adoption Amendment Bill | New Zealand Legislation

The Act currently defers to adoption judgments of overseas courts and authorities regardless of whether there are adequate checks in place to protect adopted children and young people. In practice, adoptive parents with criminal convictions and histories of abusing and exploiting children and young people have been able to adopt children and young people overseas and bring them to live in New Zealand. The Bill makes urgent temporary changes to prevent children and young people from continuing to be exposed to this unacceptable risk of harm.

The Bill does not apply to overseas adoptions within the scope of the Hague Convention. For other overseas adoptions by New Zealand citizens and residence class visa holders, recognition in New Zealand for the purposes of citizenship and immigration is temporarily restricted. In effect, the restriction in the Bill means that children and young people adopted overseas will be unable to access New Zealand citizenship entitlements and immigration pathways.

However, the change will not apply to adoptions that occur in countries that have sufficient safeguards (exempt countries). Adoptions occurring in exempt countries by New Zealand citizens and residence class visa holders will continue to be recognised under section 17 of the Act, and citizenship and immigration entitlements remain unchanged for the adopted children and young people.

The Bill also limits the court’s jurisdiction to make adoption orders under the Act. An adoption order can only be made to formalise an international surrogacy arrangement, or if a Family Court Associate or Judge is satisfied that the applicants and the child are ordinarily resident in New Zealand or there are otherwise exceptional circumstances.

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2025/206/en/latest/

16/06/2026

Bill 1: Submission Due Date - Friday 19 June

Deepfake Digital Harm and Exploitation Bill | New Zealand Legislation

The Bill amends both the Crimes Act 1961 and the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 to expand the definition of an "intimate visual recording" to explicitly include images created, synthesized, or altered to show a person’s likeness produced without consent.

The draft submissions support the Bill but include two amendments

to include audio recordings (both authentic and digitally generated) as the current law only deals with visual recordings.
deepfakes made “with or” without consent but shared without consent under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, so that it is consistent with current s 22A.

https://legislation.govt.nz/bill/members/2025/213/en/latest/

16/06/2026

We’re seeking your feedback on upcoming bills before Parliament.

We welcome your thoughts, experiences, and concerns. These will be collated and, where appropriate, developed into submissions to Parliament through Community Law Centres Aotearoa.

Over the next few posts, we’ll be outlining the specific bills we’re seeking input on.

You can share your views by completing the form below:

particularly if these proposed laws may impact your day-to-day life or your community.

16/06/2026

Kia Ora Feilding,
Just a reminder that our Feilding Clinic is on tomorrow!
The clinic is on from 10:00am to 12:00pm at the Manawatū Community Hub Library.
No appointment is necessary, make sure to head on down with your legal queries for some free legal advice!